Damage to a lock on New Orleans' Industrial Canal has caused barges to back up along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and a section of the Mississippi River,
delaying shipments of fuel to refineries and chemical plants in states along
the Gulf Coast.

On that night, the main
operating "bull gear" of the lock, built in 1923, sheered into two pieces, said
Ricky Boyett, a spokesman for the Corps' New Orleans district. The lock will remain
closed around the clock until January 17 or until repairs are completed, Boyett
said.

Jim Stark, the executive
director of the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association, which represents businesses
that use the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, or GIWW, estimated that the cost to the oil and
gas industry could exceed $1 million per day.

Mechanics for the Corps of
Engineers are currently at work repairing the lock, Boyett said. "It's over 90 years old, so replacement parts don't exist. We had to hire outside contractors to fabricate them."

Ships traveling along the GIWW must pass through the Industrial Canal Lock before or after crossing the Mississippi. The GIWW is
the third busiest inland waterway in the country, behind the Mississippi River and
the Ohio River.

"It's an extremely busy
lock," Boyette said.

To limit future delays, the
corps is engaged in a lock replacement project intended to exchange the ancient
lock with bigger, more modern locks. The project, known as the Inner Harbor
Navigational Lock Replacement, is expected to cost $1.3 billion and has been on
hold for years due to a lack of funding and proper authorization.

As of Thursday (Jan. 9)
morning, a total of 69 vessels had been waylaid in their progress along the
GIWW--43 from the west, 26 from the east. An alternate route exists, but would require
vessels to travel north to the Ohio River, east to the Tennessee River and then
south along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which cuts through Alabama. The detour takes approximately
two weeks, Boyett said.

Vessels stuck waiting for
the lock to re-open now face a difficult choice: whether to risk the journey
north or wait until the tentative January 17 date reported by the Corps of
Engineers.

Stark of the Gulf
Intracoastal Canal Association -- whose 200 members include barge fleets, boat
operators, oil refineries and chemical plants -- said he is "cautiously
optimistic" that the lock will re-open by Jan. 17. But he noted that the
Algiers Lock, located across the Mississippi River from the Industrial Canal Lock, had
suffered a major casualty last March that took 112 days to fully repair.

"At least those vessels had
an easy alternate route," he said.

The 60-year-old Algiers Lock
had become inoperable after an underwater structural component broke, damaging
one of its navigation gates and requiring a "dewatering" of the lock in order
to repair it on-site.

The damage to the Industrial Canal lock
is less severe, Stark said. Still, he saw the damage as indicative of the need
to improve the local marine industry's outdated infrastructure.

According to the Corps of
Engineers' website, a U.S. District Judge has ordered that work on the
Industrial Canal Lock Replacement may not continue until the Corps completes a
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the project.